Purpose
by ApricityinSnow12
Summary: Jason's honor. Annabeth's pride. Percy's loyalty. Staring at the letter that told her of her friend's death, Piper reflects on the meaning of battles, and wonders about purpose; the one thing he had been eager to fight for, the one thing he had been glad to die for. Purpose...if you ask her, it certainly is a foolish thing.
**Author's Note: Hello :)**

 **A week of finals finally ended, and I got this little idea... I was originally going to name this "Daughter" and write about the relationship between Piper and Aphrodite, but as you can see (or you** ** _will_** **see once you read this) I kinda got sidetracked. A bit too much, maybe.**

 **But, since I kinda like how this turned out, I decided to post it. Yay.**

 **Um...yeah.**

 **E** **njoy, and thanks for reading! And a special thanks if you review, favorite, or follow my stories! It makes me really happy.**

* * *

Piper stares at the letter for the gazillionth time since she received it four days ago. She wasn't reading it, not really; her mind had stopped torturing her like that since the 52nd time her tired eyes sweeped across the paper.

But she knew what it said, word for word, could hear it repeating in her mind like a mantra.

She couldn't believe it. She couldn't. She desperately wanted to think it wasn't real, to allow herself to have foolish hopes, to cling onto something, _anything_ that would stop her heart from tearing any further.

It hurt.

Gods of Olympus, it _hurt_.

.

From the way the letter was written, it sounded almost like he didn't care about his death, like he didn't regret charging in that battle that day, like he didn't think his war was futile.

And though she was not sure who wrote this letter, he or she might've been right; maybe...maybe he really didn't think so.

Piper thought of a conversation they had, perhaps a week before his death, when he was serious for once and told her what he thought was his purpose in _life_.

It was deep, fitting to be told at 2 in the night, in the solemn silence of the dark. She could picture his face, now, determination shading his eyes in a stern light, his lips moving in words that made no sense to her then and still made little sense now.

 _Purpose_ , he had said. He was ready to end the battle because he had a _purpose_.

And in a way, the battle _had_ ended, both for him, and for her.

No longer would she see his bright grin, hear his voice greet her in the mornings, or watch him fight with that ambition, that strong will only he seemed to have.

In a way, _she_ lost something too.

Not just one of her closest friends, but she felt like she lost a battle as well, one that wasn't supposed to be lost; not this early and certainly not during a _war_.

Purpose, huh?

Funny thing.

.

She wasn't like her boyfriend, who fought for honor, who raised his sword in the name of his father or the Roman legion that he represented. She didn't have a name to chant before she rushed into the heat of a battle, and she couldn't fight for something so fragile, could never fight for something so ungraspable.

She didn't fight for pride either, the way her best friend did. She couldn't be like Annabeth, who fought for the burst of confidence it gave her or the pride every victory brought to her mother. She didn't feel anything, really, even after a long-sought end in battle, just relief, in the slightest bit, and maybe the fear she'd kept at bay right until that moment.

And even though she loved her friends and would throw herself at a thousand bullets if it meant it could save them for even a moment, she could never understand Percy and the loyalty that made him the hero he was. She didn't get why he fought for the millions and billions of people in the world who never gave him a moment's thought, who'd put him through hell for being different, who didn't even know he existed. She could never be that selfless, could never be so loyal to the world as to sacrifice her life for such things.

No. Piper fought for none of these things. She didn't fight in fear or anger, didn't fight for superiority or gain or love or the thrill of it all.

It wasn't like her childhood days when she fought tooth and nail for her dad's love, cried and screamed and _stole_ just for a single glance from his way that ensured he knew that she was his daughter.

It wasn't like the old times when she thought she knew how the world worked and she fought against the bullies' words just to show them she could. She couldn't fight now like she did then, relishing in the defeated looks of those idiots as she gave them a piece of her mind for her dignity and in return for the anger and cruelty she felt.

Nothing was like it used to be. Now, when she was told to fight, when she knew her purpose _was_ to fight, she couldn't find a single purpose in doing so in the first place. She didn't want to fight for justice, didn't want to fight for a change that she knew would never happen. She didn't want to fight in false hopes or stupid beliefs that everything was going to be fine.

Because she knew that _nothing_ was going to be fine. After every battle, after every war, she'd found over and over again that _nothing_ was alright.

Honestly, she didn't want to fight, period.

She could never tell it to her friends because she knew it wasn't what they wanted to hear. She couldn't tell because she knew, by some instinct of an Aphrodite child, that they were just as desperate as she was to hold onto whatever purpose they found. She wasn't that selfish. She wouldn't shatter Jason's illusion of honor, wouldn't rip away what pride Annabeth gained, wouldn't destroy Percy's loyalty because, no matter how much she wanted to, she could never betray them in such a way.

She hated fighting. She hated the clash of metal against metal, fought a scream at the bloodlust all around her, held in tears from the fear she tasted in the air as she slid her dagger in yet another life.

Piper crumbled the paper she held in her hands and threw it across the room, aiming it for the recycling bin before she could do something that was against her nature.

Like burning it, for example. Or stabbing it with her cursed dagger, or stabbing it _before_ burning it.

It deserved that kind of treatment.

She couldn't find a purpose in fighting because every battle ended in death, or at least an addition to the uncountable scars that already decorated her surviving friends.

That paper was just another slap in the face, an unneeded reminder of what every battle meant.

 _Live_ was apparently his last message to everyone before he made his way across the River Styx.

That, and _fight._

.

Piper didn't like to fight because every battle brought forth a memory, a haunting picture of the faces of those who fell and never got up.

She didn't like battles because every one of them brought her another wretched letter that, like the last, wasted her tears and broke her heart a little bit further.

.

Piper's scared, _terrified_ , that one day she'd find a purpose in fighting and forget what horrors battles meant and look forward to another clash against her blade.

She's perfectly fine, staying this way, even if she was surrounded by the ghosts of her friends because she knew, as long as she didn't have a purpose, she wouldn't forget their deaths and their sacrifices.

The crumbled paper touches the rim of the bin, quivers a bit as if making a decision, and falls off onto the rug of her lonely cabin, away from the others who rest in the dark.


End file.
